Marcelo Álvarez

The Verdi Tenor - Alvarez, Orchestra Sinfonica di 4781442

. . . the overall performance is so sensitive . . . The conducting on this CD is better than one usually gets on a recital CD . . . Soprano Annalisa Raspagliosi and tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz make brief and at least capable contributions as Leonora and Ruiz, respectively, in the scene from act III of "Il trovatore ". . . If this CD signals the tenor's move into deeper waters, there's no time like the present.

The Argentinian tenor Marcelo Álvarez has been tipped as the successor to Pavarotti as the pre-eminent Verdi interpreter of his era, and as these Verdi arias demonstrate, he lacks none of the technical prowess that requires. Indeed, there are distinct echoes of Pavarotti in Álvarez's "Oh! fede negar potessi", though he delivers with passion rather than power, before offering an empathic "Quando le sere al placido". Elsewhere, he negotiates the emotion of Manrico's deathly promise "Ah! si, ben mio" from Il Trovatore in measured manner, before wringing every last ounce of emotion out of the hero's death scene from Otello.

[Alvarez's voice] has gained in incisiveness and power. And his art has developed still more markedly. There is no phrase here which does not testify to thougt about its dramatic and musical nature. As a result, the recitatives command equal attention with the arias; nothing is routine.